Layoffs Watch '11: RBS

A senior executive at Royal Bank of Scotland PLC has left amid a massive cull in the Edinburgh-based bank's investment banking division. Marco Mazzucchelli, the chairman of an advisory council focused on client relationships, departed late last month, according to a person familiar with the matter. The most senior executive so far to leave amid the bank's restructuring plans, Mr. Mazzucchelli was responsible for overseeing the bank's team of corporate client advisors globally and for managing relationships with the bank's key global clients, this person said. RBS is expected to announce Thursday that it will shed between 3,000 to 4,000 jobs in its investment-banking business. It will keep corporate banking operations such as deposit-taking, finance, and foreign exchange.

Like Bank of America, RBS has some big goals for the coming year, chief among them being the firing of several thousand investment bankers. (For those skeptical they can do it, according to a PowerPoint presentation presented yesterday, re: the "exits," quite a bit of progress has already been made.) Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain’s biggest government-owned lender, said it will cut 300 more jobs at its investment banking unit and is “on track” with its plan to exit businesses. RBS will eliminate 3,800 jobs at the division by the fourth quarter of next year, compared with an earlier target of 3,500, according to slides based on a presentation delivered by John Hourican, chief of markets and international banking, to analysts Monday. About 3,000 of the cuts will have completed this year, RBS said...The bank’s control of costs is “ongoing,” said Chris Kyle, chief financial officer of markets and international banking, at the presentation. “We will almost certainly hit this year’s number” in terms of the guidance, he said. Royal Bank Of Scotland Cuts 300 More Jobs At Investment Bank [Bloomberg] RBS Markets Investor Roundtable [RBS]